


Counting the Cost

by electricshoebox



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Established Relationship, F/F, Post-A New Path, Post-Loss, Relationship Problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 15:37:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8758792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricshoebox/pseuds/electricshoebox
Summary: After the death of Merrill's clan, Orana must decide how she feels about the truth of Merrill's magic and where it leaves them.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zythepsary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zythepsary/gifts).



> A gift for the very lovely and talented Marie, in thanks for her generosity. My apologies that it took me so long to finally get this together. This has been growing into one of my favorite rarepairs (and perhaps my rarest of pairs, but I'll happily sail this complicated ship alone if I have to), but I'd never tried writing something for them before. I'm so glad she asked for it! I hope it works and I hope you all enjoy it.

For a long time, Orana simply stood on the threshold. Behind her, there was a clatter of wood crates and the heavy clink of metal as the alienage merchants shuttered their stalls for the evening. Now and again the great tree in the center of the square (“Vhenadahl,” Merrill had said with a sad sort of smile, but Orana never quite got the vowels to sound right) creaked and swayed as the wind rattled the top branches and sent yellow leaves fluttering to the ground. At her side, Orana dug her fingers into her palm. She lifted her hand, then dropped it again. 

Seven days ago, Master Hawke had limped through the front door with sand and mud on his boots and blood on his robes, his face, his hands. He said only, “Orana, draw some water, please,” as he plucked his gloves free with stiff, jerky movements. He held them tight in his hand for a moment after he pulled them off, and Orana stepped back, certain he was going to throw them. Instead, he laid them gently above his boots on the bench, then slowly pulled off his outer robes and laid them in Orana’s arms. She knew well how to clean blood from fine cloth. 

The story had come from Bodahn, three days later. He patted her hands as he spoke, over and over, standing while she sat rigid at the kitchen table. Peeled carrots lined a cutting board at her elbow, waiting to be chopped. She stared at them while Bodahn told the story between too many apologies. 

_Well you see, Miss Merrill, she, well--there was a mirror, an elven sort of thing, and--_

_I know you are rather fond of her, I thought you should know--_

_They attacked them, you see, there on the mountainside. Oh, I’m so sorry--_

_It was blood magic. I’m sorry, I know it can’t be easy to hear, what with, well, of course, your circumstances--I’m very sorry--_

She had wanted to pull her hands away. She had wanted to flee the kitchen. But she had sat frozen on the old stool and stared at the carrots she couldn’t make herself begin to slice. 

She had seen the mirror. Merrill was so proud of it. Orana remembered finding her leaning over the swooping frame with a polishing cloth, and how she’d smiled as Orana carried in a basket of seed bread she’d made that morning. 

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Merrill had said. She had looked prouder than Orana had ever seen her, flushed from her work and disheveled as she was. _Beautiful_ Orana had thought, blushing, not looking at the mirror. 

“Do you know of the eluvians? Did I ever mention the stories of them?” Merrill had said. Orana only smiled, shook her head, and let Merrill pull her onto the floor next to her and push the basket away. Orana had thought only that they were stories. That when Merrill said, “I’m going to restore it,” she meant the broken, dirty glass, the scratched frame. That when she said it, she meant she would do it with the tools scattered around her feet, with the cloth she left hanging on the frame when she leaned close and tucked a strand of hair behind Orana’s ear. Merrill had kissed her for the first time that night, and Orana had thought only of the callouses roughened into Merrill’s hands by her staff and her hammer. She didn’t think of the scars further up her arm, at the edge of the holes in her sleeves. 

She had tried not to think too hard about it in the Mistress’s house, either, when sounds came from the Mistress’s workroom beyond the cellar, or from the library. Or when one of the house slaves stumbled into the kitchen pale and unsteady and bleeding. Or when they didn’t come back at all. And then there was Papa, limp in her arms, blood streaming from his chest to the Mistress’s waiting hands.

It was four more days after Bodahn’s story before Orana could bring herself to Merrill’s door. And now she stood, hand half-raised again, her mind a terrible blank. She finally knocked, twice.

When Merrill opened the door, she looked tired. The skin around her eyes was blotched red, all the brighter for her pale skin, and her hair looked unkempt, pulling loose from its bands. She stared at Orana for a long moment, then down at Orana’s boots. Finally, without a word, she stepped away from the door and disappeared beyond the doorway, leaving it open. Orana stepped inside and closed it.

Merrill’s home always smelled of dried herbs and wildflowers, whatever she’d found in the meager grassy patches around the city or out on the cliffs. Now, it smelled only of candle smoke from the single candle burning on Merrill’s battered wooden table. The dim told Orana the curtains were drawn over the windows, and no light came from the bedroom. The papers and books usually scattered all over the table were gone. Merrill slumped into a chair near the candle and bent her elbow on the table, leaning heavily into her hand.

“Did Hawke send you?” she asked.

“No,” Orana said. She still stood by the door. Now that she was here, her feet felt too heavy to carry her to the table.

“Did they tell you--”

“Yes.” 

Merrill’s head turned a little. A moment passed before she said, “How is Hawke?”

“He says little.” Orana’s fingers curled uneasily into the hood of her cloak, pulling it down.

Another long moment of silence stretched between them. Then Merrill straightened, pulling her hands into her lap. The candle flame trembled with the movement, the shadow of it large and wild on the wall.

“Right. On with it, then,” she said.

“On with it?” 

“Say what you came here to say.”

Orana drew in a heavy breath. She felt anxiety like fingers reaching into her gut and squeezing, squeezing. Her arms wrapped automatically around her sides. 

It had taken a very long time for Orana to shed formalities and if-it-please-you’s and begging-your-pardon’s when she spent time with Merrill. To even keep her head lifted, to remember she was allowed to meet Merrill’s gaze, took a long time to get used to. She struggled with it still, instinct pulling her head down when Merrill looked at her and smiled, even when--well. Even after everything that passed between them. To speak so freely was foreign, and still felt forbidden. 

“Put me out of my misery,” Merrill said suddenly, wrenching Orana from her thoughts. “I’ve lost enough this week, I can handle one more.”

Orana straightened. “Begging your pardon--”

“Orana.” An automatic correction, flat and quiet. Orana looked down. Old habits.

“I’m sorry, but what do you mean?”

“Creators.” Merrill sat up, finally turning to look at Orana through the dim, her shadow nearly darkening the whole wall. “Why are you here?”

Orana bit her lip against the sudden spike of anger in her chest even as she fought back another “if you please” before she said, “I should have thought that was obvious.”

Orana saw Merrill’s hand rise to grip the edge of the table. “You’ve come to end it.”

The anger fanning to life in Orana’s chest a moment before turned suddenly cold. Her whole body felt cold. She tightened her arms around herself. “Is that what you want?”

“Elgar’nan, Orana. I’m asking what _you_ want! Just tell me what you--”

“Why did you do it?”

Orana’s voice was louder than she expected, and she shrank back a little in surprise. Merrill’s hands, which had fluttered up around her as she spoke, fell again to the table.

Orana swallowed. “I mean, the mirror. Why did you--use blood magic?”

Merrill looked away. “I tried everything else. Nothing would cleanse it, nothing else even touched it. The spirit knew what was needed.” 

“To cleanse it.”

“Yes. It was corrupted. Tainted, somehow. I told you what happened to Tamlen.”

“What happened to--who?”

“My clansman. The one who found the mirror.”

“You did not tell me how you found the mirror.” Orana slowly uncoiled her arms. “Only that you wished to restore it.”

“I could’ve sworn--perhaps that was only Hawke, then.” She waved a hand a little above the table. “It doesn’t matter. Tamlen found it, it was corrupted, but it could be restored. A piece of our history. One of the elves’ greatest creations.” 

Orana finally found the courage to venture a little closer to the table. “But to work with a corrupted thing, to use--to use blood magic--”

“You don’t understand,” Merrill said. She stood suddenly, the force of it nearly blowing out the candle. She began to pace. “It’s an artifact of my people. There might be amazing things to be learned, recovered--the knowledge even of its make could be invaluable. You can’t understand what it means to have lost so much--”

“What?” 

Merrill stopped dead, halfway through her third pass by the table. Orana felt her own hands begin to shake, and she reached for the back of a chair to steady them. She closed her eyes as she heard Merrill turn.

“I--that was wrong. I just--”

“I know loss,” Orana said, trying to her voice steady. “I lost friends. I lost Papa. I lost them to blood magic.”

“I know,” Merrill said, coming closer. “I know, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said--it’s just that--there is so much the elves could have if we could just remember our history, it’s-- _Creators_.”

Orana opened her eyes again. Merrill had dug her hands into her hair, gripping handfuls of it. The candle flame sent shadows twisting angrily across her face. She sighed.

“For my people,” she finally said, letting go of her hand to gesture in front of her, “I was willing to pay the price. Any price. I knew there would be a cost going into this. I knew the risk, and it was _mine_. No one else’s. I would never ask that of anyone else. _My_ blood, _my_ choice.”

“But your blood is precious too,” Orana said, grabbing Merrill’s arm. “Don’t you see?”

She stared up at Merrill for a moment before realizing how hard she was holding onto her arm. She let go, retreating backward, bowing her head and locking her hands behind her back. “I--I think that blood is a price too high for anyone to pay. All it did in Tevinter was make them need more. The power grows and grows but it’s never enough. The elves--we lost much. But now you’ve lost your friends, like I have, I--I don’t understand how that’s worth it. It’s just more loss. Even if it’s just you, it’s--it’s still losing you, and I--I don’t want that.”

She couldn’t raise her eyes. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Merrill. She pulled her hood back up with shaking fingers. 

“I need to go,” she said. “I have to make supper soon.”

Merrill said nothing. She made no movement as Orana walked back to the door and opened it. She held the handle, hesitating as she looked out on the square, now sunset-gold and nearly empty.

“I’m sorry,” she said, quietly. “Please--please take care.” 

Without looking back, she closed the door.

The vhenadahl bled more of its leaves as Orana crossed the square, the sound like rain above her. At its base, atop an old shipping crate, a candle with a blue flame flickered among painted pots and a little carved figurine. She paused, watching it dance in the breeze. Then she took a long, deep breath, and walked up the old stairs to the gate.


End file.
